section of the plains is (appropriately) known as Salisbury, and Nassau County's largest park (more than 800 acres (3 km²)) was established in the region as Salisbury Park in the 1940s, on the site of the former Salisbury Golf Links. The county facility has been known as Eisenhower Park since 1971. Even during the later era of air flight activity on the Hempstead Plains, part of the east section of privately owned Roosevelt Field became Roosevelt Raceway, first a popular auto-racing site and then the pioneering standardbred track in horse racing, from 1940 to its closing in 1988. Aviation Another pioneering industry on the Hempstead Plains was aviation. In July 1909, aviator and manufacturer Glenn Curtiss relocated his base of operation from his native upstate New York to Mineola. Curtiss, at the controls of his biplane the Golden Flyer, circled the plains' Washington Avenue field for more than 52 minutes, demonstrating the aircraft's capabilities and earning the Scientific American prize for a flight of more than . Some 15 years later, the Hempstead Plains had earned the appellation "Cradle of Aviation". The Hempstead Plains Aerodrome was renamed to in 1917 to Hazelhurst Field, and again in 1918 to Roosevelt Field on the eastern half, and Curtiss Field to the west. These facilities and Mitchel Field provided the eastern United States' hub of private, and even military, air activity. The most famous flight from the Hempstead Plains was Charles Lindbergh's 1927 journey to France. On May 20-May 21, Lindbergh, aboard the single-engine monoplane Spirit of St. Louis, was the first pilot to fly from the U.S. solo and nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean, flying from Roosevelt Field to Le Bourget, Paris, in 33½ hours. (His grandson Erik Lindbergh repeated this trip in 2002, 75 years later, in 17 hours 17 minutes.) Development and preservation With the mid-century period came suburbanization and commercial development of the Plains region. The west section of Roosevelt Field (once known as Curtiss Field before its 1929 merger with Roosevelt) ceased operations in 1951 and has been occupied since 1956 by the Roosevelt Field Mall, one of the world's largest indoor shopping centers. To the east, the former Roosevelt Raceway section is occupied by a multiplex cinema, Target department store, and luxury condominiums. The section north of the raceway, development on which dates back to the 1960s, is occupied by The Source Mall anchored by Costco (and